Police credit residents for crime solving

Roseville Police Chief Daniel Hahn thanked Roseville residents Monday for aiding in the arrests of four sets of burglars last week.
Police believe the suspects are collectively linked to more than 25 residential and vehicle burglaries that occurred in Roseville dating back to early 2010.
“All of these people were responsible for multiple burglaries in Roseville,” Hahn said at a press conference Monday. “Had they not been caught, I have no doubt that this week they would still be causing more burglaries in our city and more of our residents to be victims.”
Hahn said the common denominator in all of the arrests was tips from alert residents who took down descriptions of suspect vehicles and behavior in their neighborhoods.
“In these cases, there were citizens and neighbors who saw something that seemed out of place and they told us about it,” Hahn said. “These were the key pieces of information that it took for us to find these folks.”
The arrest spree began on Sept. 18 when Roseville police received a report of a man acting suspiciously inside a truck behind a hotel on N. Sunrise Avenue.
When officers contacted the man, he quickly sped away and drove over an embankment, according to Sgt. Cal Walstad, head of the Community Services Unit with the Roseville Police Department.
“It ended up that in that truck were many stolen items that we had taken reports on here in Roseville, and also, the truck was stolen,” Walstad said. “Because of that event, we were able to close what we think were about 17 burglaries.”
In another case on Sept. 19, an alert neighbor took down the license plate number of a black BMW that was parked in the 1500 block of Black Bear Street, with a man and a woman loading items into it.
The car turned up at Thunder Valley Casino and officers were able to recover stolen property from several residential burglaries that were committed in Roseville and Sacramento, Walstad said.
On Sept. 20, Roseville police received reports of two people who were knocking on doors in the west and northwest areas of Roseville asking residents if they’d seen a lost dog.
Officers contacted the suspects, conducted a probation search and recovered several items of property that were stolen in Roseville, Walstad said.
According to Hahn, burglars will typically go door to door knocking to see if anyone is home. If nobody answers the door, then they know nobody is home, he said.
On Sept. 21, a resident wrote down the description of a white car with a distinctive sticker in the back window, driving suspiciously through the neighborhood.
“On that particular day, another residential burglary happened,” Walstad said. “Officers responded. In checking the neighborhood, they were able to get a description of that car.”
Roseville police recognized the vehicle from an earlier traffic stop and were able to locate the suspected burglar, Walstad said.
“The message that we want to send is our officers are working very hard,” Hahn said. “But it is critical that we have neighborhoods point out the things that (don’t belong). That is the key that helped us solve these.”
Toby Lewis can be reached at tobyl@goldcountrymedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TobyLewis_RsvPT.